


busy hands, idle tongues

by youatemytailor



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Retrospective, and i'm always crying lads!!!!!!!, anyway they're in love and silver is in way too deep, is by turns terrified and in love with them, jumps around season 3 to season 4 and finally post series, kind of, silver stares at flint's hands a lot, waxes poetic about them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 01:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12717162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youatemytailor/pseuds/youatemytailor
Summary: They could have been described as delicate, once, Silver supposes. In another life Flint’s slender fingers could have been at home striking the keys of a harpsichord; could have authored profound, beautiful manuscripts; could have stayed soft, lived far from the sea; could have held things gently with no intention of breaking them.Once, surely. But no longer.





	busy hands, idle tongues

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks and i'm tired of looking at it. silver's in love & i'm in agony. that's the fic.

The first time it happens, it is purely, _purely_ accidental.

Flint is sitting across him in the dimly lit cabin and Silver is talking; updating him on the state of the men, airing the grievances they need discussed. As always Flint listens with rapt—undivided, _unnerving_ —attention, right up until the point he hears a complaint with which he disagrees. He gives a derisive sneer then and picks up the caliper, returning to the charts spread out on the desk between them. Oh, he’s listening still—Silver can tell by the tilt to his head—but his hands go to work immediately; quick and full of purpose, with a life of their own. 

They could have been described as delicate, once, Silver supposes. In another life Flint’s slender fingers could have been at home striking the keys of a harpsichord; could have authored profound, beautiful manuscripts; could have stayed soft, lived far from the sea; could have held things gently with no intention of breaking them. 

Once, surely. But no longer. Violence breeds violence, and Silver can read the history of it in Flint’s hands; can mark the years of burning; the salt, the sun, the rope. The sword. His palms are calloused and unapologetic, knuckles as bruised as the man they belong to. They fidget sometimes, Silver knows; with impatience when they are idle, with rage when they are not, an unending, silent monologue spilling forth unchecked. They say more than Flint's mouth ever does, with an eloquence that makes Silver’s tongue envious. And Silver has gone his entire life content with the knowledge that everyone lies, and Flint lies, too, but his _hands_ —they seem capable only of truth. It is a wonder to behold. 

He doesn't realize he's fallen silent until Flint’s hands go still. Until Flint clears his throat, loudly, and to his credit Silver absolutely does not jump at the sound. 

"And?" Flint prompts, quirking a suspicious eyebrow at him. "Was there something else?” 

"Yes, er—” Silver balks, desperately trying to reel himself back in. “Mr. De Groot. He recommended we dock and repair the foremast sails. Apparently we're losing a knot or two in speed with the present state they're in, and we'll risk losing the mast itself in heavy weather if we delay any longer." 

By now Flint is frowning, only it isn't the kind he pulls for the sake of being contrary. Instead he looks curious, and _dangerous_ ; he carefully sets the caliper down. Silver sets his crutch to the floor. There is a long stretch of silence, broken only by the ship creaking around them. 

"Very well,” Flint says at last, leaning back in his chair. His hands find each other over the slope of his stomach and they rest there, entwined, rising up and down with his breath. Helplessly Silver feels his eyes skitter back to them, feels his face _burn_ for it. "Take care of it as soon as possible. I'll not dawdle in Freetown a moment longer than needed." 

"Of course. Yes." He stands, mindful of his leg. Mindful to keep his eyes on the sea, stretching for miles behind Flint's head. "Right. I'll be off, then."

He can feel Flint's gaze on the back of his neck as he turns and practically runs out of the room. 

* * *

The second time it happens, Flint is holding a gun. 

The first man he shoots with zero hesitation. The stench of shot fills the air, mingles with the tang of blood, seeping endlessly into the deck. It coats the insides of Silver's nostrils like tar. He feels as though he would heave if there were a scrap of food in his belly. Something is roaring loud enough in his ears that it drowns Billy out completely as Flint begins to load the pistol again and this is horror, Silver thinks, syrupy and slow with exhaustion. He remembers; this is what it feels like to have your hands tied. 

Time is moving erratically now. Disjointed and circular, trapped in an infinite kind of heat. The next moment Silver sees over and over and over again for what feels like a fucking eternity. (He never really stops seeing it, even months later. Years.)   

Flint lifting the gun. Flint cocking it. The man—Alcott—on the ground pleading, near tears.  

The bow is loaded; the die is cast. If the crew could still breathe with ease they would hold it now, bated and terrified. Silver's dry eyes sting as he waits unblinking for the axe to fall. And he waits. And waits. And—

There it is. The tremble. It is a faint, little thing, originating right at the flex of Flint's pale, thin wrist. It would be if no consequence, Silver thinks, but it travels like breaking glass along Flint's fingers and then runs up in reverse, shattering his guarded expression into pieces. What seeps through is fucking  _agony_. 

Flint closes his eyes. Flint pulls the trigger.  

"If you are not strong enough to do what needs to be done," he tells Silver, later, when both of his hands have balled into shaking fists, "Then I'll do it for you." 

_And you’ll die doing it,_ Silver thinks, defiant.

* * *

There's a helpless beast in Silver's chest, clawing at the bars of his ribs. 

It changes form every time he dares look it in the eye, shifting like sand before him, disguising itself with practiced ease. Sometimes it’s anger. It has fangs and claws, and no plans other than fighting its way out, caring little for the carnage it’d leave behind. It belongs in this cage, Silver thinks. When it abates at last—draws away like the tide—it leaves something behind; a pathetic kernel of truth that trembles like a dead leaf whenever he looks at Flint's hands; Flint's hands holding the sorry excuse for a knife, his thumb running carelessly over the edge of the blade. Flint's hands steady. Steady in the face of certain death.  

The night is dark and silent. Flint doesn't react when Silver lowers himself next to him. He doesn't let go of the knife. Silver can hear Flint's skin scraping against it, grating, grating, grating. 

_This is fucking foolish_ , he wants to say. It sits in his mouth like coals, burning his tongue raw. When at last he speaks it's a familiar dance, leading Flint to water and urging him to drink as if Silver isn't tempted to take him by the shoulders and _shake_ him until he does, as if he isn't tempted to raise his voice and _beg him_ to at least try. At times Flint looks over and there's something long dead in his eyes; a ghost aching to be let go, to be lowered into the ground and be done with it. When he's confronted with it Silver feels himself smile, skin stretching over bone in a way that is unsettling. _Please,_ he thinks, injecting as much of the sentiment he can into his voice without giving the whole truth away.  _Please stay._    

It feels like a failure when Silver rises at last. Another failure, another refusal, the final door closing. He moves away because he cannot bear to look at Flint any longer, cannot bear to hear the sound of him breathing, cannot bear to count along, to count _down—_ and he used to be so good at it; used to be so good at grasping for things and missing them and moving on. Moving forward. Every part of this feels like he's reversing into the dark unknown.  _This is fucking foolish,_ he thinks, and this time it is directed at himself. He is so consumed by the thought that he almost misses the gentle thud that echoes dully in the cage and when he turns towards it Flint is staring at him, and the blade is on the ground.

There is a beat, suspended in time like amber, as Flint watches him sit down in the far corner. Two animals sizing each other up.

Afterwards Flint's empty hands find each other between his knees and the fist wrapped around Silver's heart relaxes, fingers unspooling one by one. This time he is not embarrassed to look. He'll never be embarrassed to look again. 

* * *

They are high up on the cliff, practicing in the late afternoon. As always there is very little talking involved for which Silver is grateful. Parrying Flint's attacks while balancing entirely on one leg is hard enough without having to concern himself with besting Flint in a simultaneous verbal skirmish. The comforting silence is broken only when Flint occasionally hums: sometimes contrary, other times with approval, and that second sound tucks itself somewhere safely between Silver's ribs and glows warm, like he's swallowed a piece of the sun. 

It's going well. Excellent, even—it's the first lesson where Silver tentatively thinks he may actually be improving rather than running around in aimless circles—that is until Flint backs him into a patch of sand that usually remains outside of their training grounds and Silver's heel gets caught on a rock. He knows he's done for before he's even begun to fall. 

The damage is negligible, all things considered. He ends up with a mouthful of sand and a scrape over his temple and in a flash he's rising to stand, ready to block the attack he knows is imminent. Except when he turns Flint is right in front of him, his hands empty and his eyes wide.

"Don't—" Silver starts, blistering at the sympathy he sees there but then Flint's hand comes up to cup the side of his face and the rest of it trips inelegantly down Silver's rapidly tightening throat. The frown Flint's wearing is close now—so close that Silver can see something being laid bare in front of him, coming into view inch by inch as Flint looks him over, concerned—only Silver doesn't know how to name it or what to do with it, above all he doesn't want to risk touching it with his thieving fucking hands. He eventually manages to say, Flint's grazing thumb burning a brand into his temple, "It's all right. I'm—I'm all right."

"All right," Flint parrots, meeting his eyes again. His fingers slide back to thread into Silver's hair for a beat, holding him steady. "All right." 

* * *

The last time he sees Flint, there's shackles around his bloodied wrists. He's sitting in the dark with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched, and he's spinning one of his rings, endlessly. 

"You're going to regret this," he murmurs, and for once there's no threat in his voice. The certainty there is threatening enough. "It might not be tomorrow, or a month from now, or a year. But there will come a time where you will look back on this moment and wish you'd done the hard thing. The necessary thing." 

The words drift in the air between them like foreign entities and Silver thumps his crutch once against the crate he's sitting on to get them to dissipate, to get Flint to look at him. "Do you want me to find you, if that happens?"

" _When_ it happens," Flint says, and pauses. Something moves behind his eyes and his hands go still. 

He doesn't speak again. He doesn't have to. 

* * *

_“_ Oh, I’ve missed these _hands—“_ Silver says on a relieved exhale, his mouth pressed reverently to Flint's palm. There's different callouses on them now, a spattering of new scars, but for the most part they are the same, as if no time has passed at all. When he realises he’s spoken the words aloud he feels himself flush red.   

He hopes for a moment that Flint hasn't heard him. That Flint is as exhausted as he looks laying there in the dark, but then he makes a small confused sound and his eyes slide open, barely slits, the green in them sated and pleased. “What's that?”

"I—" Silver drops Flint's wrist back to his chest and leans into the pillows. "Nothing, I just missed you. That's all." 

"I know," Flint says, shifting to prop himself up a little. There's a smile pulling at the corner of his infuriating mouth now, and it distracts nicely from the infuriating run of his bare throat, shining with cooling sweat. "We've already established that. I missed you and you missed me and it's been too long and we should have done this years ago, and on and on and on, but you said something about my—"

"They're honest," Silver interrupts, closing his eyes, and Flint makes that _sound_ again, so he has to fucking elaborate. "Your hands. They've always been honest, even when you weren't. For the longest time they felt like my only anchor to the truth. I missed that a lot over the years. It was hard to get used to their absence."

There's quiet, for a beat, the only sound in the room the rain tapping against the windows and the house creaking around them; Thomas shuffling in the kitchen downstairs, perhaps. And then Flint says, humor dancing in his voice, "Are you trying to tell me you were off in Bristol all this time thinking about _my damn hands_?" 

"I wasn't—" Silver starts furiously, and he opens his eyes to argue but finds Flint's face close; close and grinning from ear to ear like a cat with a string, and something lurches into Silver's throat, warm and eager to be voiced at last, "Fine! Yes! Yes, I missed everything about you and your hands most of all, yes I missed them and their fidgeting—don’t _laugh at me_ —I missed them and the way they looked gripping a sword, I missed them and the way they touched me like you'd never spilled a drop of blood in your life, like they remembered how to be careful and gentle when we were together, is that what you wanted to hear, Captain—that I love you and your _God_ _damned fucking hands—_ "

He doesn't get the room to say anything else because Flint groans and kisses him, his hand running up Silver's chest and settling at the dip of his throat. Warmth seeps through Silver's skin sets his heart running, and he covers Flint's hand with a desperate grip of his own before he rolls them both over, and when they part Flint's fingers settle on his hips like they've always wanted to belong there, like they've reached the inevitable conclusion of their long, long journey home. 


End file.
